OCPAC e-mail - Election results & Defending American Dream Summit report

[Charlie Meadows]

Members and friends of the Oklahoma Conservative Political Action Committee (OCPAC)

++  AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

++  ANNOUNCEMENTS

++  ELECTION RESULTS

++  DEFENDING AMERICAN DREAM SUMMITT

++  AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

Our 12 noon luncheon for Wednesday, September 3rd 2014, will be held at Olivet Baptist Church, 1201 Northwest 10th street in OKC. For the next 4 weeks, we will be interviewing Republican candidates to appear on the ballot in the November elections. This week, the 4 Republican senate candidates have been invited, the following 3 weeks will have house candidates invited. A scoring sheet will be provided as it is too long and too many candidates to remember by the time we vote on October 1st. 

++  ANNOUNCEMENTS

*  WEDNESDAY  -  OCPAC MEETING  -  We need a notary public in attendance for our meeting. Jerry Fent will be present seeking signatures on a petition and will need a notary to notarize the signatures. Jerry has indicated he will pay the notary for the work. If you can attend please call Jerry at (405) 528-4707 to let him know you can be present. This will be an ongoing project for several weeks and he may need several notaries to cover for future meetings. 

*  SATURDAY  -  TULSA AREA  -  The 2014 Faith & Freedom Prayer Conference will be held from 8:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. at the Oaks Country Club, 6500 South 49th West Ave in Tulsa. The cost to attend is $30 with lunch provided. Speakers will be Dr. Judith Reisman, a scientist, attorney and advisor to 4 White House administrations on child sex abuse. She blew the lid wide open on the flawed Kinsey research. Congressman Jim Bridenstine will also be speaking as well as Peter LaBarbea who was recently jailed in Canada for speaking out in Public for traditional marriage. Also, from the OKC area will be Steve Black, Executive director of First Stone Ministries. Steve will be speaking about the hope and healing that can occur when homosexuals admit their sin and seek God for an escape from that lifestyle. There will also be information provided about the situation in the nation of Israel. For online payment register at www.shofarintl.org or mail you check right away to: Shofar International Foundation, P.O. Box 700239, Tulsa, Ok 74017.

*  SUNDAY  -  HOLDENVILLE AREA  -  Catherine Brigden, with the Hughes County John Birch Society will be hosting a 6 part study series called: THE CONSTITUTION IS THE SOLUTION. The location will be the Church of the Nazarene at 323 S. Oak Street in Holdenville. The meeting will begin at 6:00 p.m. this Sunday, September 7th. Part 1 will be: THE DANGERS OF DEMOCRACY which will analyze the differences between a Republic and a Democracy and why that is vital to understand. These meetings will be once a month on the first Sunday of the month through next February. People that have seen the study on the Constitution produced by Hillsdale College and this one by the Birch Society tell me this one is the better of the two. If you live anywhere within a 50 mile radius of Holdenville, this will be well worth you time to really learn about our Constitution. 

*  MONDAY EVENING  -  MOORE AREA  -  The Liberty Republican Women will host their regular monthly meeting this coming Monday evening, September 8th at the Moore Western Sizzlin restaurant on the West side of I-35 at the 12th street exit. The members gather at 6:00 p.m. for dinner with the program beginning at 7:00 p.m. I will be the guest speaker as I will be talking about the National, State and Local Chambers of Commerce, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. While this is a women’s club men are also welcome. 

  

++  ELECTION RESULTS

OCPAC had 3 candidates on the ballot this past Tuesday night with us winning 3 of those races and losing the other 3. This now brings our total for both the primary and primary run-off races to 13 wins and 10 losses which is a 57% victory rate just above our lifetime average of 54.4%. 

Going into the primary run-off races 2 of our 6 candidates were in the first position after the primaries and the other 4 were in second place. Therefore, we had one upset victory and that was Chuck Strohm from the Jenks/Tulsa area. 

Sources had told me this would be a difficult race as the Jenks and Tulsa school establishments were solidly behind his opponent Melissa Abdo. In fact she was recently quoted in the Oklahoman regarding the lawsuit against the Nichole Henry scholarship bill passed the last year Gov. Henry was in office. 

This law allows parents with special needs children to use scholarship money to send their children to a private school if their local government school does not provide adequate programs for such children. I was told a third party mail piece about Abdo’s opposition to school choice helped Mr. Strohm. I was also told the piece may have been financed in part by Russell Perry, Oklahoma’s most successful black entrepreneur and a Republican before the arrival of a fellow named Kevin Durrant. Of course, most important, Chuck was an excellent candidate and I am excited about him being in the legislature. 

Perhaps the most interesting race from OCPAC’s perspective was the 5th Congressional District race between Steve Russell and Patrice Douglas. Steve Russell prominently displayed OCPAC’s endorsement of him in all of his TV commercials and referred to our endorsement as being from Oklahoma’s largest and most conservative club every time I heard him on a radio program. On the other hand, the Douglas campaign sent out 2 mail pieces implying OCPAC was supporting Mrs. Douglas. That resulted in me doing a special robo-call on behalf of Steve Russell to clear up the confusion. Many folks have told me they got the call and liked it as it was short and right to the point. Many candidates have used our endorsements in the past, but this was the first time a candidate we didn’t endorse tried to imply our endorsement.

John Paul Jordan of Yukon had the largest margin of victory of any candidate last Tuesday. Primarily because he became a very strong candidate and his opponent just didn’t get any traction. I truly expect John Paul to be a staunch conservative going forward. 

We lost the panhandle race as Kenny Bob Tapp was beaten by Casey Murdock. Mr. Murdock sent his survey in but was not able to attend our interview process. His survey looked really good and a couple of communication exchanges I had with him were very positive. Though Kenny Bob would have made a very good lawmaker, the same might be the case for Mr. Murdock if he governs the right way rather than becoming a lackey for the State Chamber, only time will tell? As a point of interest, Mr. Murdock lives on a ranch south and west of Boise City, near the New Mexico border. He may be the lawmaker that will have to travel farther to the Capitol than any other lawmaker in state history? 

With the senate in such great need of more conservative Republicans, it was a disappointment that we lost the Kern versus Yen race and the Thomas versus Bice race. The Kern race was simply not to be as it was not close. Senate district 40 is simply not a conservative Republican district. 12 years ago there were 6 candidates in the race with the conservatives losing in the primary and the 2 run-off candidates being more along the liberal vein. The eventual winner 12 years ago was Cliff Branan who turned out be more and more liberal the longer he was in office. 

Unfortunately his successor will probably be as, if not more liberal, if I were a betting man I would bet on it. 

Mark Thomas was out spent fairly dramatically, but worked very hard and lost by 53 to 47. About 150 voters switching and we would have had a different outcome. I hope Mark will stay engaged and consider running again in 4 year if Stephanie Bice turns out to be governor Denise Northrup’s (Mary Fallin’s chief of staff and the one I believe is actually running the show at the governor‘s office) little puppet as I suspect she will become.

Most likely the greatest impact OCPAC and “Charlie’s Picks” may have had on any election so far in the election cycle was the corporation commission race between Todd Hiett and Cliff Branan. That was a tough race with a lot of allegations going back and forth. Todd used our endorsement in his TV commercials and after my Charlie’s Picks went out Todd also used my statement which refered to Cliff Branan as a fraud in his newest TV commercials. 

What was the reason I referred to Senator Branan as a fraud? In his campaign materials he boasted that he wanted to serve as a corporation commissioner to fight the overreach of the federal government. The only problem is that the state senate is the far better place to fight that overreach and during his time in the senate, not only did he not fight that battle, on several occasions he refused to allow bills for that very purpose to be heard. Thus the label of fraud. 

When I send out Charlie’s Picks, there is usually not enough concentration of folks receiving the e-mails in any senate or house district to swing an election unless it might be very close. But on a statewide race that is a different story as not only do our 5,000 plus direct readers receive and contemplate the information, it really gets forwarded to a lot of other folks as well as our having a lot of hits on our social media. During the 2010 election cycle we had 15,000 visitors on our blog after my Charlie‘s Picks went out. 

Now here is what is really scary and puts a lot of weight on my shoulders to get it right. While some may read my Charlie’s Picks with amusement or disgust, I can’t tell you how many people tell me they simply didn’t have the time to research the candidates so they take the picks and go straight down the line and vote according to my recommendations. While I would prefer folks were involved enough to do their own research, I do appreciate their trust to take my recommendations.   

++  DEFENDING AMERICAN DREAM SUMMIT

This past Thursday evening Linda and I boarded a bus in Moore to attend the Americans For Prosperity (AFP), Defending the American Dream Summit, which was held at the Omni Hotel and Conference center in Dallas from Thursday evening through Saturday evening. I knew it would be educational and a lot of fun to join a couple hundred Okies out of 3,000 in attendance. In addition, you couldn’t beat 2 nights at the Regency Hyatt, transportation, admission to the summit and several meals for just $99 per person.

Many of the morning break-out sessions were very educational, then the afternoon sessions were filled with motivational speeches as well as candidates for President. I was most interested in hearing Dr. Ben Carson and was not let down by his presentation. I also made contact with the “Run Ben Run” petition effort to try and see if we can get him to OCPAC sometime when he is in Oklahoma again? Only time will tell if that comes to fruition. Ted Cruz and Rand Paul were excellent and Governor Perry even sounded like a conservative. I didn’t bother to hear Indiana Governor Mike Pence, but a candidate not on my radar screen turned out to be very interesting. Her name is Carly Florina, the former CEO of Hewitt Packard and a California Senate candidate who unsuccessfully challenged Barbara Boxer. While I doubt she is a viable Presidential candidate, she might well be high on the list for Vice President. 

On Friday we attended the break-out session on Obamacare which featured Oklahoma’s Attorney’s General Scott Pruitt as one of the 3 presenters. His presentation gave hope as to how Obamacare might be brought down and as such he received a standing ovation. Another presenter was Avik Roy of the Manhattan Institute who brought a reality check to the folks. He shared that even with a Republican controlled House, Senate and President after 2016, it will be very difficult to repeal Obamacare as by that time over 30 million people will be enrolled in the boondoggle. 

In my mind his perspective verified my statements of a year ago when I said the government shutdown was probably the last best chance to repeal Obamacare. Of course when Republicans like Tom Cole and Tom Coburn as well as others came out publicly and said the shut down  would not work, would not work, would not work, they chopped the legs out from under Ted Cruze, Jim Bridenstine and others that were trying to push the ineffective Republican leadership in Washington off high center and force them to fight the Democrats. 

Don’t ever let anyone tell you we couldn’t have won that battle if we had presented a united front and stayed on the point that the Republicans would fund every part of government but Obamacare. The other speaker I wanted to mention was Christie Herrera from the Foundation for Government Accountability.

I don’t know if she will ever get an invite to such an event in the future, but she should. She really did a great job of explaining the consequences of expanding Medicaid under Obamacare and then exposed the Republican Governors that fell for such a bad idea. Just some of those governors were Jan Brewer of Arizona, Branstader of Iowa and Mike Pence of Indiana. Let me say this very clearly. Any Republican Governor that sought to expand Medicaid as a result of Obamacare, which they had the option to do or not to do, should in no way be considered for a Presidential or Vice Presidential place on the ticket. They lack the wisdom and/or conservative credentials to hold such an office.    

There was a special dinner for the Oklahoma folks on Friday evening with AG Scott Pruitt and Labor Commissioner Mark Costello both speaking. I can’t express just how fortunate we are to have these 2 men holding key positions in our State Government. I believe they are better than their contemporaries in any other state.

My final thoughts, if money is not an issue and it doesn’t seem to be with AFP, you can produce a fantastic program and that was what we attended, the summit was very positive and inspiring. This was their 8th annual summit and I believe the first one in this area. AFP has over 600 energetic members on staff and is expected to have a staff of a 1,000 or more by the 2016 elections. They now have chapters in 32 states with Alaska just coming on board. If they don’t become just another force for the establishment they might make a real difference in America. If not, little will change as a result of their efforts even with the Republicans in power. I sure hope they go the right direction and help with the reforms so badly needed   

I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday.

Charlie Meadows

Charlie...@gmail.com 

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[Charlie Meadows]

Ken, I agree and know that they are already in the pocket of the establishment. That is the reason they have so much money. I was just trying to be kind as I fired a small shot across the bow in hopes of warning some of the conservatives that went from getting caught up in all the glitter. It really was quite a show. Charlie

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